Good troubleshooting and I like the idea of testing the erasedisk.bin file. Send me an e-mail to sclayton@cisco.com and I will reply with the file you need. As for the activation key, that should not be a problem. Just send licensing@cisco.com the serial number of your unit and explain your situation. They can dig up the activation key based on the serial number provided.

Good troubleshooting and I like the idea of testing the erasedisk.bin file. Send me an e-mail to sclayton@cisco.com and I will reply with the file you need. As for the activation key, that should not be a problem. Just send licensing@cisco.com the serial number of your unit and explain your situation. They can dig up the activation key based on the serial number provided.

althought the image loads correctly, and i am able to configure the pix ok, when i reboot the pix, it goes back to giving me the "Checksum verification on compression loader failed" error message again.

to get back into the ios, i have to go into monitor mode and load the image again, then it load the image without rebooting.

i am ready to throw the towel in on this one.. ;(

as i am now ready to accept that its a 'real' hardware issue ;) what do i have to do to get cisco to look at it?

i dont beleive this box is covered by any cisco support, what do i have to do to get it under support so it can be swapped out?

are there any alternatives to a hardware support contract? ie, once off payment for fixing it/swapping it out?

ive never had cisco hardware die on me before and as such have never needed a support contract.. ;(